It was opportunity finance after all!

Back at the beginning of August this year we published our post ‘Call us and save £70,000.’

This explained a lot about farm finance and especially bridging finance for a farm. We compared the way we handled this case with the way another company handled it and the savings we created. We said that the other company had changed the term bridging finance to opportunity finance – there are opportunities out there, that’s for sure, though we believe that our customers should take advantage of the opportunities they find and not the arrangers of finance. This means ensuring that any finance is truly in their best interests, which comes about by being honest and trustworthy served with a dollop of integrity.

We can now happily report the start of a happy end to the story. Our customers, who bought the farm hugely discounted because of their tenancy, have realised their profit by selling the farm for more than they thought possible at the best part of £1.4m realising their profit and some. What we had told them, in all honesty, was that refinance was not possible and that they should enter into the short-term farm finance on a presumption that the farm must be sold. As a consequence, they acted with complete enthusiasm in the sale and did not hang around on some false promise that refinance might be available. They knew what they needed to do and got on with it in exactly the straightforward way we knew they would, because they needed to know exactly what their options were, without embellishment, which is precisely part of the service they received from us.

It was great to get back from a staycation to find this news on the desk – to add value to another’s lot, to create something for them and earn our corn at the same time gives us a great buzz.

Choices are often not simple but one thing is certain – when arranging farm finance of any kind it is important to talk to someone who you can trust. The proof of the pudding is, as ever, in the eating. Are our customers happy? – we don’t need to answer the question.